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Mental evaluation ordered for ex-USOEC boxer under arrest

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – Champion middleweight boxer Jermain Taylor, who is facing charges in two gun-related incidents, must undergo a mental evaluation, an Arkansas judge said Tuesday.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Leon Johnson granted a request from Taylor’s attorneys that Taylor be moved to a state hospital for a full evaluation, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.

He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree battery and first-degree terroristic threatening charges stemming from an August shooting of his cousin at his home in Maumelle. And Taylor last week was charged with aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a minor after police said he opened fire and threatened to shoot a family during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade in Little Rock.

He trained at the U.S. Olympic Education Center at Northern Michigan University and was a bronze medalist at the 2000 Olympic Summer Games in Sydney.

Prosecutors sought to have Taylor’s bond revoked in the first case after last week’s arrest, so he was arrested again pending Tuesday’s hearing. Instead, the judge agreed to a request from Taylor’s attorney, Hubert Alexander, to have Taylor immediately enter a hospital for an evaluation.

Afterward, Alexander said it likely would include a full mental and health evaluation.

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